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Cadillac Unveils Pricier Alternative To Tesla Model S
An anonymous reader writes "Cadillac has officially unveiled its Tesla S alternative, but at $5,000 more than the Tesla, it may not be the cheaper option you've been looking for. 'Cadillac is touting the ELR's 8-inch touchscreen powered by its CUE infotainment system — which two years in is still a buggy mess — along with a range of safety and convenience features, including lane departure warning, forward collision alert, and a 24-hour concierge service to answer questions. There's also a "regen on demand" feature that allows the driver to boost the brake regeneration, slowing the vehicle and recouping energy by pulling on the flappy paddles behind the steering wheel. GM's bean counters are quick to point out that depending on what federal and state tax incentives buyers are eligible for, the net pricing could be as low as $68,495, but that's still a tough sell considering you're basically getting a Volt with more presence and less practicality.'"
Since TFS doesn't give any detail worth noting, this thing has two doors (not four like the S), a laughable 35mi electric range before the gasoline engine kicks in for 300mi total (which is still fairly bad, especially when the S has 208-265mi range pure electric depending on the model), a smaller (8" vs 17" for the S) touchscreen with a poorer OS/UI, all that for $75k. Oh yeah, and it looks like a blockier Volt. In fact, it's pretty much a Volt with a few extra features at twice the price.
If this is the best GM can do, they better get back to the drawing board quick.
I should not reply to AC, but...
the assembly plant is right here in silicon valley.
parts for EVERYONE are always made in china or overseas somewhere. even mighty caddy has parts made overseas. no one can resist the lure of cheap parts. but assembly location does matter and its built here, not in china.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I'm Elon Musk and I approve this negative review of my competitor's product.
It looks like news outlets all over the place are comparing this to the Model S, but then like 2 sentences later point out how it is mechanically basically a Volt. How does that make it an alternative to the Model S at all? Doesn't that just make it an alternative to the Volt? Was the Volt an alternative to the Model S?
...to help pay for the heath and retirement benefits of union employees who already retired at 55.
Yeah, a real shame that people negotiated decent benefits for themselves. Wadda they think they are, CEOs?
Fucking Randroids.
1) Subjective. I fail to see much difference, except I'd bet the dashboard seams in the Model S don't squeak after 5k miles like every GM product's dashboard, ever.
2) Subjective. The Model S is a beauty, and the Volt is not. This car is a boxier Volt, which makes it even uglier, IMO. Then again, I've never known GM to build anything that looks better than the average pile of animal feces.
3) Its battery life is pathetic, so it makes up for it with a mediocre ICE to charge with. Wake me when it has a range near 1000 miles, which is what a setup like this should be sporting.
4) A GM? Not likely. I have yet to see one last much beyond the warranty, and I've seen several that didn't last even that long. GM should be replacing Country Time any day now.
5) Where is GM from 10 years ago? Gone? Buyouts and bailouts are two different things, and GM was bought out. Meanwhile, Tesla paid back their loan nearly a decade early. And that loan wasn't part of a bailout or a buyout, it was an R&D loan for their electric vehicle technology.
6) Window dressing. Any idiot can bolt on more irrelevant crap, and GM hires the best idiots they can find to do exactly that.
american assembly is not a problem.
american influenced design is the problem.
quite a big difference.
otoh, tesla is an outsider and not the usual car company. I would not expect old school gm or ford to be even able to design (much less make) a tesla style car.
if I could afford an S, I'd get one. even with the gawdy and unwanted laptop screen in the thing, I'd still probably get one.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Cadillac has picked up their game across the board from the ATS, CTS and the XTS with what has to be just about the greatest turn around of any automotive manufacture ever. I have every confidence that they will get this car right and that it will be worth the proverbial money. Hell, even Top Gear magazine (typically very Anti American) gave the ATS and new CTS high praise.
GM should have made this car before they made the Volt. People are far more likely to accept a pricier car at the luxury end of the segment (eco-sheek) than in the family segment where it is much harder to justify the price differential. Now the problem is that people will think of this as an expensive Volt and that may make it difficult to sell.
1) A nicer interior
2) A nicer exterior (tesla is bland, this is one of the nicest looking cars ever)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and you need to get your eyes checked. This so far from one of the "nicest looking cars ever" that it makes me wonder if you've ever seen any other car in your life.
3) A car you can drive anywhere without charging
Of course, not charging it will eliminate most of the benefits of lugging that 400 lb battery around everywhere and will make your fuel economy go down significantly, but hey... you can still point at it and claim you're environmentally conscious, right?
5) Support from a company that wont be out of business in 10 years
Let's just ignore the fact that GM filed chapter 11 bankruptcy just four years ago and had to be rescued by the government. That's completely irrelevant to whether the company will be around in 10 years.
6) A lot more technology features (the tesla has a rear view camera but not much else)
"Cadillac is touting the ELRâ(TM)s 8-inch touchscreen powered by its CUE infotainment system â" which two years in is still a buggy mess"
Technology that is badly designed and doesn't work properly isn't a selling point.
That article is awesome. You know that somebody is being extra fair with their comparisons when they start adding things like payroll tax and unemployment insurance to the cost of an employee to inflate the number, as if that has anything to do with unions. And my heart just breaks for the auto manufacturers that they pay a third more than base salaries because their workers have to work on average hundreds of hours of overtime per year.
Here's the real takeaway from that article for me: base wages are $30/hr, the effective wage due to the overtime ends up being $40/hr, and the general rule of thumb for the fully loaded cost of a worker is usually 150%-200% of salary, so they are right on target. Remember that, for instance, 4 weeks total of vacation and sick leave costs 7.7%, unemployment insurance costs another few percent, payroll tax is another 6.8%, throw in a few more percent for worker's comp. You're north of 20% before you even start paying for health insurance and retirement.
If you think that's too much compensation for somebody working in a factory, you don't believe that the United States should have a middle class.
I agree with everything with the exception of number 2, "Then again, I've never known GM to build anything that looks better than the average pile of animal feces." The 69 Camaro was pretty nice.
Why flamebait mods?
The guy makes some interesting points
"You're forgetting that these are toys for rich people."
The Tesla perhaps, the article talks about a toy for rich, old people.
No, the word remains "negotiation". The fact that GM was managed by incompetent, but sadly typical, executives who refused to take any notice of those "dirty hippies" and "tree huggers" who said things like "Uh, gasoline isn't always going to be cheap" and "Wait, isn't the middle east unstable these days? Shouldn't we develop some better, more fuel efficient, vehicles just in case the shit hits the fan", doesn't change the fact that the union and the crappy management did negotiate a deal that would have been perfectly fine had they, you know, produced decent vehicles.
BTW, isn't criticizing someone else's negotiation compensation "the politics of envy" and "class warfare", or does that only apply when it's criticism of executives who get obscene bonuses for running their companies into the ground?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Is that even the same car? The pictures in TFA don't look anything like that. The one in TFA looks boring and bland. The one you posted looks like a prototype that never saw production.
Learn to love Alaska
as for having touch as an interface is beyond stupidity in a car, why do 99% of cars have knobs and buttons ? clue: it isnt a technological problem its more of a "how can i adjust ac/settings/radio/nav without taking my eye of the road"
good luck in court
I agree, real knobs and buttons in a car are a necessity. Try adjusting temperature or fan setting via a touch screen, especially a GLOSSY touch screen. Now compare to a simple illuminated button which you can ALWAYS see (and feel, and feel the feedback). It's like typing blind on a simulated keyboard on your tablet vs. on a "real" keyboard.
He makes no points. "I don't like it" was the point. Posting an opinion as a fact (especially a controversial opinion) *is* flamebait.
Learn to love Alaska
most of GM parts are made in mexico, they just do the final assembly here
I'm not aware of any other production long-range battery car? The Model S is the only all electric car with a 200+ mile range that does not include an ICE, luxury or not.
I'm more impressed each press release by Tesla - not because of anything in particular, but because it seems so impossibly hard for every other manufacturer in the world to even get to half of the Model S range on batteries alone. In fact, if there weren't actual, on the road vehicles I would say - based on their marketing literature and the performance of every other manufacturer - that they were full of shit and may as well be hyping the Moller AirCar.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Thanks for the link. The batteries, which are a pretty major component by cost, are made in Japan by Panasonic. I was really hoping Tesla would find a way to work with an American battery vendor, but that didn't work out so well for Fisker, so I can't say I blame them. The steering column and maybe a handful of other stuff is made by Mercedes, who owns a small percentage of Tesla. This probably accounts for why it has a lower percentage made in the US/Canada.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Why can't cell phone companies make good cell phones? Why did Apple and then Google have to show them how? Why didn't Sony build iPods? How did they let Apple do it first, years after Sony should have dominated the market? Why can't big car companies make a good electric car? Why did Tesla have to show them how? Why is GM even offering this stupid model, and why did BMW offer an even dumber one? Is it to prove to themselves that electric cars are a bad idea? Why are all of these examples Silicon Valley innovations?
Honestly, I just can't figure out whats wrong with GM, BMW, Motorola (before being bought - the Moto-X rocks), Sony, and so many other large iconic corporations. It's one thing to lack a marketing genius like Steve Jobs. It's another to be so incredibly stupid that even the average slashdot geek can see your product will be a dismal failure. There is simply no way that this car, or BMW's freak-show of an electric car will succeed. Why are they wasting their time and money? Why are they so stupid?
Honestly, I don't know. I know a bit about business, but I can't make sense of corporations acting so illogically.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
One more example - not from Silicon Valley! Why are the big cell service providers so dumb? Coverage sucks everywhere, yet it takes tiny Republic Wireless in North Carolina to figure out that cell phones should switch to VoIP when WiFi is available? Why is it so hard for big companies to do the obvious right thing?
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
It is unbelievable that this article is taken seriously. The writer refers to the shift paddles as "flappy paddles behind the steering wheel". This tells me that the person writing the article knows nothing about cars and did very little research to reach their conclusions.
Actually, you just showed you know less about the automotive world than they do.
"Flappy paddle" has been the derogatory term Jeremy Clarkson and the other Top Gear presenters have used for years upon years, and it's now in widespread popular use. It referred to three things, early on: 1)Automatics with paddles that simply said to the transmission "shift up or down now", which usually happened eons after you pushed the paddle and the transmission still has all the inefficiencies of an automatic 2)Automated-manual transmissions which had horrendous "creeping" functionality, poor usability/interface (ie 3 point turns were mind-numbingly hard/slow/complex), and broke down a lot because of the complexity of actuators/sensors/etc. 3)Sequential transmissions that were brutal in terms of comfort (having been adopted from racing applications) and poor creeping functionality.
Nowadays the term is mostly used by automotive fans who hate anything that doesn't have a manual gearbox, even if it's a perfectly reliable 7 gear, double-clutch transmission that shifts so smoothly you can do so mid-corner and not upset the car's balance, and can shift so fast it has to wait for the engine to match revs...
Please help metamoderate.
"Regen paddles?" Why should the driver have to control the power train at that level? Regenerative braking should happen during any braking, as it does on most other electric cars. For light braking, regenerative braking is enough; push the brake pedal down further and the brake pads engage.
This isn't a new concept; it appeared first in the PCC streetcar, from 1936. (San Francisco still runs a fleet of them.) The PCC cars had a whole hierarchy of braking. As the brake pedal was depressed, first the drive motors went to regen mode, dumping power back into the trolley line or into big iron resistance grids on the roof. Then the brake shoes were applied to the wheels by compressed air. Next, four big rubber brake buffers pressed down against the rails at four points. Finally, if you floored the brake pedal, the sander came on and dropped sand ahead of the lead wheels for extra grip. The operator didn't have to think about this - just step on the brakes.
Sillier things have appeared in high-end electric cars. There was one European prototype which not only had "shifting", but an engine noise generator feeding the car speakers. You actually had to shift as speed increased. All this did was feed an input to the control electronics, but it gave the illusion that the driver was doing something "high performance".
That was 44 years ago. The guy who designed it is probably dead.
Nope. Per TFA:
essentially a two-door Chevrolet Volt with a handsome exterior and a leather-lined cabin.
Exactly.
Comparing it to the Tesla S is patently ridiculous.
16.5 kWh lithium-ion battery pack in the Volt finds its way underneath the creased sheet metal of the ELR, as well as its 1.4-liter gasoline-powered range-extending engine. That allows the Caddy to motor along on electric power alone for up to 35 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in to juice up the pack and keep the ELR going for a claimed range of 300 miles.
Claimed range of 300 miles is when you run out of gas.
You get 35 miles on battery.
Its Volt technology in a much heavier car.
Comparing that to real world Tesla range makes for pretty depressing reading.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
T-Mobile also has VoIP built-in to many / most of their phones, and Republic Wireless isn't exactly the model of a good idea done well... many RW customers complain that calls get dropped when they go past the range of WiFi, exactly what RW claims doesn't happen, and exactly the problem with the idea in the first place.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Technology that is fundamentally defective by design and can't work properly isn't a selling point. Who in their right minds wants a touchscreen-controlled anything in a car? That's exactly the opposite of making cars safer. You can't control a touchscreen without taking your eyes off the road for an extended period of time.
Touchscreens have no place in the front section of a car unless they are mounted to the left corner of the dashboard so that at least you're roughly looking at the road.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Too bad the first thing GM did not do, was change the "1.4-liter gasoline-powered range-extending engine" with a state of the art Euro-turbo diesel. Then the thing could be diesel electric, not like a locomotive but more like a submarine. 1.6 liter might do it. ...
When you are slogging around in traffic it runs on the battery. The power unit could just cut in to fully charge the thing when necessary, and provide direct drive for hi-way speeds just as it does with the petrol unit.
Again this is GM, does anyone else remember the "Cimarron" looks like GM has done it again.
On another note, it is not an electric car like the Tesla it is a serial hybrid that cheats on the serial part a bit. Apparently it will never be elegant like the Tesla ether
There is NO fixed RPM engine that can convert the energy from gasoline to electricity more effectively than just driving a gas engine. The electricity from the Volt must come from from the grid, or in my case, solar panels to be cost effective. There is a conversion loss of ~30% when the electricity is sent to the wheels and then another 30% when you re-gen. The Volt gets ~36 mpg if you feed it gas alone. That's not a bad number but you can do better with other fuel cars, like a Volkswagen Jetta.
I own two Volts. I have two charging stations at home. My driving situation is that I get about ~40 miles per charge. Several times, I have gotten 60 miles out of a charge that was situational. Mechanically, the Volt seems to be very sound. With the exception of the center console electronics, everything is top notch.
An earlier poster compared the new Cadillac to an old Cimarron, My Volt, from 0-50 will smoke 95% of the vehicles out there. Electric motors don't have a torque curve, they have a torque line from 0 RPMs to 15000 RPMs in the Volt's case. I don't know this to be the case, but if they upped the battery bank, the Cadillac could have even faster take off than the Volt.
At work, we have chargers, again driven by renewable energy. My Volt was backed into the spot and right next to is, was a Tesla Model S. The front ends are remarkably similar. The back end of the Volt is nice. I find my Volt visually appealing with the exception of the black plastic body trim. But it is acceptable
The point is that electric cars can work, but you have to be in a position to make use of it.